Fantastic Five Part Two

The Advisory Board Company (ABCO) is the second member of the Fantastic Five from the the March issue of Smart Money.

Here are the two sentences touting ABCO. Vince Gallagher of Needham Funds made the pick:

A consulting firm that makes hospitals and doctor groups more efficient. "It's the sweet spot of health care and business services--two home runs," Gallagher says.

The first stop for the Pig was ABCO's website. This is ABCO, in its own words:

The Advisory Board is a membership of 2,500 of the country's largest and most progressive health systems and medical centers. The Advisory Board provides best practices research and analysis to the health care industry, focusing on business strategy, operations and general management issues.

Gathering data across and beyond the membership, the Advisory Board publishes daily and weekly news services, 50 major studies and 3,000 customized research briefs each year on progressive management and clinical practices in health care. In general, the research focuses on the best (and worst) demonstrated practices, helping member institutions benefit from one another's learning curves.

There are some solid fundamentals at play with ABCO. Free cash flow has climbed from $19.0MM in 2002 to $50.4MM in 2006.

And I'm not finding much recent analyst coverage, meaning ABCO is currently trading under the Wall Street radar. SmartMoney's competition page yielded no consensus analyst recommendation. Morningstar doesn't publish an analyst report on ABCO.

Hey, not every post can be a wealth of information. I'm finding it a bit funny that a company specializing in research and analysis doesn't have that much research and analysis for investors.